On vac FL.. Got an SRX rental...Five mins from Tampa going across one of those bridge/causeways, start getting some weird road noise... Might be the change in road surface.. Then tire pressure warnings... Then it doesn't feel right at all... Pull over... Tire is destroyed and missing pieces of sidewall! Me, wife and little one stranded at side of interstate.
Call roadside, will get local guy to come in forty mins... Five mins later, state of Florida road assistance guy comes by. Awesome I thought, he can put the donut on right now, we can return to airport and get new vehicle. Then we start looking for the donut.. And looking and looking, and looking..... None to be found! Call back roadside.. They don't believe theres no spare. I insist we need a tow, he checks and two hours is the best he can do. Ok, no prob, just get us a taxi back to a/p and you guys take care of vehicle. Nope. Roadside operator is not local and cannot arrange a cab! Wtf.. The best he can do is tow another vehicle out to us, do a swap on the side of the road and be off. That will be a few hours! WTF! F-it, I got full insurance on this, I'm leaving the car here and calling a cab.
After many dropped cell calls and trying to explain to the taxi people where we are, we finally get a cab.. Telling them the interstate number, direction and mile marker didn't ring a bell for them.
Get Back to the airport, and then argue with the people for a bit, we get a ford explorer, a few bucks off. First They were reluctant to pay for the cab or believe the was no spare.
Finally back on the road. The explorer seemed nicer than the srx, and it does have a spare!
Turns out the spare kit is optional on the srx... Meant only for fleet and rentals. Hmm, I wonder did their buyer know that?
Glad it wasn't at night. Thumbs down to then rental people (it was one of the big companies)..
Kudos to the Florida states road ranger. He stuck around for the whole thing even though he couldn't do anything until the cab arrived.
